United management has just released the results of their latest 'Climate Survey' in which a 'random sampling' of U.S. employees was conducted.  The results of the international employees are not available until the end January.

You'll notice that I've placed apostrophes around 'Climate Survey' and 'random sampling' because I want to draw your attention to the absurdity of this poll.  Here's why:

United management polled only 14,000 of the its entire U.S. employee group.  Folks, this is nothing.  A mere fraction of the actual amount that is just over 90,000 employees!  Although the results are not yet in for the international employees, they only comprise 7,000 of the overall UAL employee total!

In other words, you have an Employee Climate Survey that was only delivered to 14-17% of the workforce.  And even this dismal sampling percentage would only occur if each and every employee who received the survey bothered to complete the form.  Does that happen in real life?  Of course not.  So how many U.S. employees actually returned their surveys?  A whopping 24 percent.

So....the survey results represent 24% of 14-17% of the 100,000 employees that comprise United Airlines.  I find this survey to be such a ineffective way of measuring Employee Climate that it's a waste of time and server space for me to list the detailed results here.  If you want, you can read the opinions of those few employees on today's NewsReal.

I will tell you this much: The results from that tiny percentage were not very positive ones.  But given what transpired during the summer, that comes as no surprise anyway.  And I'll also quote you Dennis Arouca, vice president of People Services, who told NewsReal about the climate survey results:

"No one is surprised or pleased with the results to date, given what we have faced together this year.  Labor disputes and operational and financial challenges have taken their toll on employees, customers, and shareholders."

So there you have it: the BIG THREE:  Labor Disputes, Operational Challenges, and Financial Challenges.  A nice quote that deflects outwardly the blame for United's troubled year squarely on the union employees, the operational facets, and the financial market.

Not one single word or mention of the idea that perhaps poor choices and/or shortsightedness made by upper management is also a contributing factor!  Come on WHQ!  The first step in healing and moving forward is having the courage to also admit your share in the past year's 'challenges'.  You'll quickly gain the respect of the employees for being able to do that.  You'll definitely gain mine.